Northern Ireland Roadshow Moves To Glasgow

26 Mar 2012

The tourism roadshow – which aims to generate excitement about ni2012 and raise awareness of Northern Ireland as a fantastic holiday and short break destination – has been taking place in shopping centres in London, Glasgow and Manchester, targeting shoppers and potential holidaymakers in those high-footfall locations. The venue in Glasgow last week was the Buchanan Galleries Shopping Centre, where the participating Northern Ireland tourism organisation promoted direct to shoppers. A networking evening event was also organised by Tourism Ireland, targeting some of the main tour operators and travel agents in and around Glasgow and encouraging them to include Northern Ireland in future holiday programmes.

Vanessa Markey, Tourism Ireland’s Head of Great Britain, said: “This type of roadshow, where we are able to talk directly to prospective holidaymakers around Britain, as well as to influential tour operators and travel agents, provides us with an excellent opportunity to spread the good news about Northern Ireland as a holiday and short break destination. It is proving to be an excellent platform for our tourism partners from Northern Ireland to showcase their product here in Great Britain, helping to grow tourism business in 2012 and beyond.

“We very much welcome the business and networking opportunities of this roadshow to highlight the fantastic programme of major events planned for Northern Ireland under the banner of ni2012. With the imminent opening of iconic attractions such as Titanic Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre, as well as events such as the Peace One Day concert at Ebrington in June, ni2012 provides a wonderful opportunity to showcase the new and vibrant Northern Ireland in Great Britain and elsewhere around the globe.”

2011 marked a welcome growth for visitors from Great Britain to Northern Ireland with 772,000 GB visitors coming here during the first nine months of 2011, an increase of +6% over the same period in 2010.

Notes to Editors:
• Tourism Ireland is the organisation responsible for promoting Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland overseas as a leading holiday destination.
• Tourism is responsible for in excess of 4.9% of GDP in Northern Ireland and supports approximately 40,000 jobs.
• In 2011, approximately 1.51 million overseas visitors came to Northern Ireland (+6% on 2010), delivering revenue of approximately £340 million.
• Tourism Ireland’s international website is www.discoverireland.com; there are 42 different websites, providing information in 14 different languages covering every continent. In 2011, discoverireland.com attracted almost 12 million unique visitors.